By The SUN
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| The police have always warned the public against getting involved in money laundering (RTHK file) |
Two Filipinas convicted on two separate charges of money laundering were sentenced to 12 months and 15 months, respectively, in Eastern Court this afternoon, May 4.
Magistrate
Vivian Ho said the duo’s offenses of money laundering was a serious crime that
calls for a custodial sentence, as she ignored mitigation submitted by the
defense lawyers who were seeking a lenient sentence for their clients.
Defendants
Hazel V. Gepulgani and Marissa C. Mesa were convicted of three counts of “Dealing with property known or believed to
represent proceeds of an indictable offense,” or money laundering, after a
trial that ended on April 19.
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Gepulgani
was arrested in November 2021 after a total of $281,400 was deposited in her
HSBC ATM account from June 13, 2020 to June 18, 2020.
Mesa
was arrested later as police acted on a growing number of “love scams” that
involved using foreign domestic workers’ bank accounts to “wash” money obtained
via deception.
The
Hong Kong Police said in March that scams reached a record high of almost
28,000 cases in 2022, up 45% year on year, with victims’ losses totaling $4.8
billion.
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A total of $1.35 million was found in the individual
HSBC bank accounts of Gepulgani and Mesa.
A
key prosecution witness said during the trial it was part of some $2 million
she was told to deposit to various accounts by a man who claimed to have sent
her a valuable parcel for which she had to pay customs and other duties.
In
mitigation, the two defense lawyers said the defendants both had clear records
and had family to support back in the Philippines.
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Gepulgani,
jobless since June 2020, is married to a fellow overseas Filipino worker based
in Oman. They have three children who are being looked after by her mother.
Mesa
is a single mother to three grown-up children who are in the care of her
parents. Her lawyer said Mesa’s offense was totally out of character, as attested
to by her employers who said they want to retain her as a helper. The lawyer
asked for a “compassionate sentence”.
But
Ho was unmoved, saying the offences that the two women committed were serious
crimes.
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She
said Gepulgani had opened an HSBC bank account that was later used to launder
more than $280,000 within days. Ho said the Filipina claimed she lost her ATM
card shortly after opening the account but did not bother to report it to the
bank. The magistrate gave Gepulgani a 12-month jail sentence.
For
Mesa, the magistrate said her HSBC bank account received deposits of more than
$1 million that came from a scam victim. She sentenced Mesa to 15 months in
jail.
Three
other Filipinas implicated in the scam had earlier pleaded guilty to the same
offense and were sentenced to between two and eight months in jail.
Mesa
was acquitted of conspiracy to deal with ill-gotten money, but was found guilty
on the alternative charge of directly committing money laundering.
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